Rue de Seine

Hockney learned to etch at the Royal College of Art in 1961 when he ran out of money and painting materials. The linearity of etching made it the prefect medium to exploit his love of line. It provided him with an unrivalled quality of line and with a spontaneity of method comparable to drawing on paper. In 1971 he took with him a number of etching plates on a drawing trip to France where he sketched the present work. His print of the 'Rue de Seine' is conceived almost entirely in terms of line and shows a varied and sophisticated employment of line. The artist apparently enjoys the strict, decorative pattern of the cross-hatching for its own sake which he juxtaposes with the freely sketched view and the aquatint still-life.

This print recalls Matisse in its treatment of the view through the window as well as the "goldfish bowl" in the foreground. The view is from a friend's window at the junction of rue de Seine and rue des Beaux-Arts.